Palatin Technologies is a little known pharmaceutical company that specializes in the development of peptide drugs. Palatin Technologies (PTN) is severely undervalued with a Market Cap of about $180 Million as of 3/17/21. Palatin has $72.2 Million in cash on hand as of 12/31/2020, and no debt.* Palatin owns and recently began marketing FDA Approved Vyleesi, a drug to treat Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in women. The drug also has potential to be studied for additional indications such as Erectile Disfunction in men. In December 2020, Palatin informed investors that they received positive results for the their PH2 dry eye drug study PL9643. According to the company, “PL9643 is a efficacious as Restasis® and several orders of magnitude more potent”.* *Source: palatin.com//assets/Palatin_Corp_Prest_March-2021-Final.pdf
Like many other biotech companies, Palatin has relied on dilutive financing options to fund operations and pipeline development. During the period from June 30, 2016 until about June 30,2018 the outstanding share amount nearly tripled from 68,568,055 shares to a whopping 200,554,205 shares.* This was due primarily to the exercise of a substantial amount of warrants with a $.01 exercise price (penny warrants). These warrants resulted in heavy downward pressure on the stock price. *Sources sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000911216/000165495416002272/ptn_10k.htm sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000911216/000165495418010150/ptn_10k.htm
Despite the heavy downward pressure from the penny warrants, the stock price of PTN was able to climb from below $.30 in April 2017 to reach a high above $1.50 in April of 2018. This was due to a string of good news* including the following: Positive phase 3 data for Vyleesi (bremelanotide). Signing of a licensing agreement for Vyleesi with AMAG Pharmaceuticals for the North America Territory. Signing of a licensing agreement for Vyleesi with Fosun for the China Territory. Signing of a licensing agreement for Vyleesi with Kwangdong for the Korea Territory. *Source: palatin.com/investors/press-releases
In the Palatin’s FORM 10-K For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 it was disclosed that there were no more penny warrants outstanding.* As a result, the huge downward pressure of the penny warrants on the stock price was eliminated. *Source: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000911216/000165495418010150/ptn_10k.htm
Palatin is sitting pretty today… Vyleesi remains a valuable asset that can be relicensed to a new partner for North American rights and ROW rights as well. Their dry eye drug is looking promising as well and they recently applied for an international patent for the drug. They also have a few other drug programs in the pipeline including other ocular indications, cardiovascular indications and inflammatory bowel disease. The company has a healthy balance sheet with no debt and cash on hand of $72.2 Million as of December 31, 2020. The closing price of the stock was $.7683 on 3/17/21.
Where Palatin Technologies could go moving forward: Although they are having ongoing discussions, Palatin management has stated that they believe partnership talks for North American rights will ramp up later in the year for Vyleesi as well as for the rest of the world territories. Palatin is continuing to move forward with its PL9643 dry eye drug. The CEO of Palatin indicated in the Q1 2021 conference call that they “have had preliminary discussions with potentially larger companies that would be interested in a dry eye product.”* I believe if development of PL9643 continues to move forward it will catch the eyes of larger players in the industry and a partnership, asset purchase, or buyout of the company will occur. Novartis purchased Xiidra for $3.4 Billion upfront and up to $1.9 Billion in milestone payments.** The company is in a similar spot to where they were at before licensing Vyleesi to AMAG, but now they have the PL9643 dry eye drug with promising potential, as well as a few other drugs in the pipeline. *Source: seekingalpha.com/article/4389783-palatin-technologies-inc-ptn-ceo-carl-spana-on-q1-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript **Source: eyewire.news/articles/novartis-to-acquire-dry-eye-drug-xiidra-in-deal-worth-up-to-5-3-billion/
Potential upcoming catalysts: North America relicensing of Vyleesi. ROW licensing of Vyleesi. Developments of Vyleesi in existing licensed territories or China and Korea. Announcement on next eye indications (Anterior and Retinal Indications). Funding for a potential drug that treats effects in the lungs of COVID-19. Phase 2 clinical trials for the dry eye drug and an IBD (ulcerative colitis) drug.
With cash in the bank, and with Vyleesi and PL9643 moving forward, PTN is severely undervalued. Palatin produced a string of good news in a period of heavy downward pressure on the stock price from penny warrants. Despite the downward pressure the stock still managed to move from about $.30 to over $1.50. If Palatin can produce a string of good news again we should see a much more significant move upward, now that downward penny warrant pressure is off. My One-Year price target is $5.00 ($1.37 Billion Market Cap).
Disclaimer: Author is not a licensed financial advisor. This presentation is for educational purposes only. Do your own research. Author holds a long position in stock.
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